43.3. Starting and Stopping OProfile

To start monitoring the system with OProfile, execute the following command as root:

opcontrol --start

Output similar to the following is displayed:

Using log file /var/lib/oprofile/oprofiled.log
Daemon started.
Profiler running.

The settings in /root/.oprofile/daemonrc are used.

The OProfile daemon, oprofiled, is started; it periodically writes the sample data to the /var/lib/oprofile/samples/ directory. The log file for the daemon is located at /var/lib/oprofile/oprofiled.log.

If OProfile is restarted with different configuration options, the sample files for the previous session are automatically backed up in the directory /var/lib/oprofile/samples/session-N, where N is the number of the previously backed-up session plus 1.

Backing up samples file to directory /var/lib/oprofile/samples//session-1
Using log file /var/lib/oprofile/oprofiled.log
Daemon started.
Profiler running.

To stop the profiler, executing the following command as root:

opcontrol --shutdown